Investigation of moisture-induced delamination failure in a semiconductor package via multi-scale mechanics

In this work, moisture-induced interfacial delamination in a semiconductor package was investigated by experiment and multi-scale numerical analysis. The interfacial adhesion strength between a silicon wafer and an epoxy adhesive layer was characterized by a die-shear test with respect to moisture concentration and temperature. Molecular dynamics simulation was performed to study the effect of moisture and temperature on the interfacial adhesion energy and strength at the Si/epoxy adhesive interface. Based on the molecular dynamics predicted interfacial adhesion strength, a numerical stress analysis was performed considering hygro-swelling stress and the thermo-mechanical stress during a solder reflow process to predict the moisture-induced delamination failure of the semiconductor package. The multi-scale simulation result was compared with the actual reliability test result. From this study, it was concluded that the proposed multi-scale simulation technique can be used successfully for the prediction of moisture-induced package failure.